Weekly Summary- 1/03/09
The last half of December in the App Store saw a bit of a slow down from the torrid earlier part of the month. There was an average of 430 new apps added to the store over the last three weeks versus the over 750 new-apps-per-week average we saw during the first two weeks of December. Still, adding over 400 new apps each week is hardly insignificant as there are now over 12,000 apps available on the App Store.
Even with over 1,200 new apps, though, Weather still managed to stay idle without a single change in numbers over the last three weeks, remaining stuck with 61 total apps. Though not noted below, Sports seems to have slowed down a bit after only adding 16 new apps in the last few weeks after producing some nice gains in the previous weeks. Games slowed down a bit too, though that slow down is relative; that category still averaged over 90 new apps each week.
And now, the numbers:
Total Apps: 12,386
Three Weeks Ago: 11,098
+/-: 1,288
Top 3 Overall: Games (2,849), Entertainment (1,414), Utilities (1,210)
Bottom 3 Overall: Weather (61), Medical (112), News (164)
Top 3 Gainers: Games (+288), Entertainment (+163), Reference (+144)
Bottom 3 Gainers: Weather (+0), News (+13), Medical (+13)
Weekly Summary- 12/13/08
Since I wasn’t able to post a weekly summary last week, this week’s summary encompasses the activity on the App Store from the past two weeks. And what a busy two weeks it’s been. The number of apps on the store grew by an average of more than 750 each week. By comparison, the previous growth rates had been about 300 new apps each week. This now takes us to more than 11,000 total apps; a long way from the 500 or so when the App Store debuted in July.
Some things remain the same, though, such as Games still being the runaway dominant category with now over 2,500 apps. As you can see below, Utilities and Entertainment also made strong contributions over the last two weeks, as did Education (132 new apps), Lifestyle (115 new apps) and Sports (73 new apps).
And now, the numbers:
Total Apps: 11,098
Two Weeks Ago: 9,571
+/-: 1,527
Top 3 Overall: Games (2,561), Entertainment (1,251), Utilities (1,107)
Bottom 3 Overall: Weather (61), Medical (99), News (151)
Top 3 Gainers: Games (+332), Entertainment (+213), Utilities (+141)
Bottom 3 Gainers: Weather (+14), News (+14), Medical (+17)
Amazon Mobile: Just in Time for the Holidays
If you’re like me, you’d much rather do your Christmas shopping with a few clicks of the mouse than having to wait two hours for a parking spot at the mall then battle with grouchy folks in the stores for that last fill-in-the-blank item. And now, thanks to a handy new app from amazon.com it’s easier than ever to get your holiday shopping done.
The app, on the App Store as “Amazon Mobile”, is pretty slick. You can search the site for any item and if you sign in it even has a live version of your shopping cart. So if you started shopping at home from your PC (like me) but didn’t get around to finishing it (like me), then you can simply hop on the app from anywhere and take care of business. It can also be a handy way to look up a product or even get reviews and check prices on something you were thinking about buying while at the store.
There’s also an “experimental new feature” called Amazon Remembers. Basically, you take a picture of an item and it saves the image for you under the “reminders” tab. It’s also supposed to notify you if Amazon can find a similar product for you. I took a picture of my Logitech laser mouse and sure enough I got an email a few minutes later saying they had found a product similar to the one in my photo (it was exactly what was in my photo, actually) and gave me the option to view it either on my iPhone or in a normal web browser if I was sitting at a computer. Pretty nifty.
Overall, the app functions well and seems pretty useful. And the Amazon Remembers feature could prove to be pretty interesting down the road. I’ve already used the app a few times to help finish up some shopping and check reviews on two different products I was going to buy in Circuit City the other day. And best of all, it’s free!
App Info
Name: Amazon Mobile
Developer: Amazon
Category: Lifestyle
Price: Free
Time Magazine Shows Fieldrunners Some Love
It’s been said for a while now that the iPhone could well be a viable mobile gaming platform that rivals the PSP and Nintendo DS. And in less than six months of existence the App Store has brought quite a few amazing titles to iPhones and iPod touches everywhere. Now, one of the most popular games in the App Store has made it on to Time Magazine’s list of Top Ten Video Games of the Year.
That’s not Top Ten iPhone Games, folks. Nope, Fieldrunners (by Subatomic Studios) gets mentioned in the same article as current top games across all platforms, including Spore, Gears of War 2 and LittleBigPlanet. That’s some pretty impressive company, and with good reason: Fieldrunners is one of the best games on the iPhone and my current favorite. It’s simple and fast-paced tower defense at its best. If you haven’t already, pick it up today. You won’t be disappointed.
Name: Fieldrunners
Developer: Subatomic Studios, LLC
Price: $4.99
FAB APP ALERT: Bugz
When Bugz was first released to the App Store I thought, “Hmmm… seems pretty simple. Doesn’t look like there’s much to it.” Well, the very fact that it is simple is what makes the game so good. Its quick pace and straight forward gameplay give it an addicting quality not found in many iPhone games.
Full Review After The Break
Weekly Summary- 11/29/08
This week brought a new category to the App Store: Medical. The original category of Health & Fitness has been split, with 82 of their apps going over to the new category. Although arguments could be made for splitting other categories as well, this is the first split we’ve since the App Store launched.
Aside from the split, there wasn’t any real groundbreaking news in the App Store this past week. Despite a major U.S. holiday the App Store continued its trend of adding around 300 apps each week and Games continued its dominance with another 136 apps. Also of note: Entertainment has now joined Games as the only other category with 1,000 plus apps.
And now, the numbers:
Total Apps: 9,571
Last Week: 9,271
+/-: 300
Top 3 Overall: Games (2,229), Entertainment (1,038), Utilities (966)
Bottom 3 Overall: Weather (47), Medical (82), Social Networking (169)
Top 3 Gainers: Games (+136), Education (+82), Entertainment (+61)
Bottom 3 Gainers: Productivity (+4), Weather (+6), Social Networking (+10)
Weekly Summary- 11/22/08
The “Weekly Summary” post will be a little different from here on out. Since the release of iPhone 2.2 you can no longer see the number of apps in each category by accessing the App Store through your iPhone. So. I’m now forced to use iTunes to calculate the numbers which is, shall we say, less than precise. For example, if you browse the Books category it will list 538 apps, though the listing includes apps from different “genres”. If you sort by genre and count just the apps in Books, the number is 430. However, I also manually counted the apps in there by clicking to the actual category on the store and going through the 21 pages of apps in the Books category and I counted 438. So, an exact science it ain’t.
What it does do, however, is give us a new benchmark for measuring the weekly changes on the App Store. So, while I won’t be comparing this week’s numbers to last week’s we will at least get a sense of the new numbers and have some numbers to base future weeks off of. Some things do seem to be consistent with my previous findings, though, such as Games being king and Weather dead last.
And now, the numbers:
Total Apps: 9,271
Last Week: N/A
+/-: N/A
Top 3 Overall: Games (2,093), Entertainment (977), Utilities (921)
Bottom 3 Overall: Weather (41), Social Networking (159), Photography (166)
Top 3 Gainers: N/A
Bottom 3 Gainers: N/A
Cube Update Released Today
Well, that was quick. Four days after being released on the App Store “Cube” has it’s first update available. The new version released today includes:
-Fixed accelerometer failure bug.
-Fixed keyboard so reliably displays and in landscape mode.
-Faster image loading with less memory used.
-Minor performance tweaks.
-Smaller overall download size.
The most important part of this update is faster loading of images as that was definitely slowing things down and hindering gameplay. The game is still a little rough around the edges, but this new update does help clean things up a bit.
Game Review: Cube
A new first-person shooter was just released to the App Store today. The game, titled “Cube”, is in the Doom mold and plays fairly well. And best of all, it’s free!
You play the game by tilting the device left and right to turn and pressing on the lower right part of the screen to move forward. You fire by pressing on the bottom left of the screen and jump by pressing on the upper right. The controls take a little getting used to, but after a few minutes I was zipping around the map pretty easily. Thankfully the aiming mechanic is pretty forgiving. When an enemy popped into view and I quickly mashed the fire “button” they seemed to drop easily. If the aiming had to be more precise it would have made for a very frustrating experience, so kudos to the developer for easing up on it.
There’s nice variety in the game, too. You start with all of the weapons already available to you, which include a shotgun, rifle, some type of automatic machinegun-type thing and what appears to be a rocket launcher. There are also a ton of maps available to play which mixes things up nicely.
The graphics are pretty good overall, though frame rates do take a hit whenever enemies appear. Also, some of the maps (like the single-player Ruins map) are pretty dark which can make it tough to spot enemies.
The sound is pretty impressive, too. There’s an energetic heavy metal track to the game and the weapons explode with satisfying force. A few times I did notice a bit of static and clipping when enemies would attack, though. Aside from that one nitpick the audio is probably one of the game’s strongest points.
While there may be a few glitches here and there, Cube is overall a pretty satisfying FPS. The developer has noted on their website that they’re working hard to get an update to Apple to fix some known bugs. I think it controls better than Billy Frontier’s on-rails shooter mini game and is probably a glimpse into the future of the genre for the iPhone/iPod Touch. And the price is certainly right… can’t beat free!
Name: Cube
Developer: fernLightning
Price: FREE
CameraBag on Sale
For those of you who are disappointed with the camera on the iPhone (and there are quite a few of you out there) the nifty app CameraBag can help make your blah photos a little more exciting. Basically, it’s a series of filters to apply to your photos (both those you’re about to take and those you already have on your device) to make them appear as if they were taken from different old-school cameras.
The app is usually $4.99, but it’s now on sale for $2.99. It’s gotten good reviews on iTunes (average rating of 4 stars out of 457 reviews as of this writing), so if you were looking to spice up your iPhone photos now might be a good time to grab this app.
App Info:
Name: CamerBag
Developer: NeverCenter Ltd. Co.
Category: Photography
Price: $2.99 (usually $4.99)
